The Golden State hopes to expand the state's voter rolls via the Internet.

Starting Wednesday, eligible voters in California—the nation’s largest state by population—can register to vote online.

Previously, Californians had to take a printed form, sign it, and mail it to an elections office before being counted as registered to vote. In July, Washington became the first state in the nation to allow residents to register to vote via a Facebook app. Around a dozen states, including Connecticut and Indiana, also allow online registration.

Under the new system, which saw 3,000 Californians use it in its first 12 hours of existence, an online system matches a state identity card or driver’s license with date of birth and the last four digits of a Social Security number. Once a voter’s identity has been confirmed, she or he can click a button to authorize the digital signature that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles already has.

The deadline for voter registration for the November 6, 2012 presidential election is October 22.

"Today, the Internet replaces the mailbox for thousands of Californians wishing to register to vote,'' California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said in a statement (PDF). "Today we are taking the next step in the never-ending evolution of democracy and reaching every Californian.''

According to the California Voter Foundation, more than 25 percent of the Golden State’s eligible voters are not registered.

"We have one of the lowest rates of registration in the country,’’ Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation told the Los Angeles Times. "We’re hoping that this new system will encourage more young people to get registered. This is going to make the process more accessible to more people.’’

I was curious what would happen if you did not have a driver's license or SSN (as these are options in the picture included in the article). From the linked statement:

Quote:

To register to vote, a Californian must complete a brief voter registration application on paper or online. When a person registers online, the system will search the DMV database for the applicant’s California driver license or identification card number, date of birth, and last four digits of the applicant’s social security number. If the information is found and the applicant authorizes elections officials’ use of the DMV signature, an electronic image of the DMV signature will be added to that voter registration application. If there is no signature on file with DMV, all of the applicant’s information will still be transmitted to the county elections office; the applicant will just need to click “print,” then sign the paper application and mail it. (California law requires that the applicant sign the voter registration application, which is considered a legal affidavit.) As always, the county elections official will contact the applicant when the voter registration application is approved or when more information is needed to confirm eligibility.

So, it still looks like it will be submitted electronically, but the applicant will need to sign and mail it in as a signature is required. If you have a license, you get around this requirement by using the signature on file with the DMV. Pretty cool, and should ease the burden of voter registration for a lot of people. Glad to see states moving forward on this.

Some things should just NOT be done. OR at the very least those idiots in charge should have the insight to wait until security technology standards for the Internet drastically improve.

If some of the supposedly most secure Website on the Internet are regularly gettgin hacked - how is some half-brained genius not going to interject himself into this and not fudge elections results ?

Is California that arrogant to assumer their web offering is that more secure than anyone elses ? The Feds just got hacked - but somehow California is secure ? WTF are they smoking ?

Hacked how? Are you going to hack into this and somehow register someone to vote? You would need all of their personal info, and even then all you would be doing is registering them, not actually submitting a vote. On top of that, the data you submit is simply sent to the county elections office, who will then confirm the data (offline) with results already on file. No different than if you mailed something in.

So... what about the people with neither a driver's license or a state ID card?

(and before the claim is made that these people would not have a computer, I would hasten to point out that many libraries have internet access available for free to the public.)

edit:I'm concerned as it is nigh-impossible to vote in King County, WA on election day. It's almost exclusively mail-in or nothing. This change to voting practices bothered me greatly and I worry about people getting "ideas" that any system which seems like a good idea will become mandatory.

What happens when the same person registers to vote a 1000 times under different identities?

Wow.

Read the friggin links maybe?

"Made possible by a 2011 bill authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, the online system will allow people whose signature is already on file with the state Department of Motor Vehicles to transfer their voter registration form electronically to county elections officials from the secretary of state's website. Since 2009, voters have been able to access a voter registration form online, but until now, they had to print it out and mail it in."

What happens when the same person registers to vote a 1000 times under different identities?

How long of a road between registring to vote online, and actual voting online? I'm guessing less than 10 years. This is a slippery slope we are on.

Exactly how is the same person going to register to vote a 1000 times under different identities? Seriously how? What they may be able to do if they have enough information is to register 1000 other people to vote but they will not get to vote a 1000 times.

Besides as others have pointed out this is not automatic. All information, including current address information, needs to be verified by the county registrar. I think your worries about rampant fraud are just a bit overstated.

Not sure if naivete is the issue here or what. I work computer security. Nothing online is secure. If you can think it, it can be done. Amazon and MS can't secure their crap. You think a government can? Just wait until Trololol Lololol registers to vote. And that will be the least of our problems.

What happens when the same person registers to vote a 1000 times under different identities?

How long of a road between registring to vote online, and actual voting online? I'm guessing less than 10 years. This is a slippery slope we are on.

Since those other identities will have to actually exist and match already recorded ID card, last four of SSN, and date of birth, the worst case is that non-voters will get registered, and it could distort the records of party affiliation, which doesn't really affect anything. (I vaguely recall that you could choose which party ballot you want at the time of voting during a primary in California, regardless of registration, but it's been a while since I lived there.) Is that a problem? Personally I don't even see a problem with automatically registering everyone in the state and don't really understand why that is not the norm. Why make voting harder?

Really, there's no excuse for the archaic paper-and-pen and hand processing of the old system. It is far more expensive for the state.

Now there is a potential privacy issue if someone hacked the site, in that they could capture name, ID card number, last four of SSN, and date of birth. I doubt this is the most vulnerable point of attack to obtain that information, but from a security standpoint it is a point of attack and should be treated as such.

So... what about the people with neither a driver's license or a state ID card?

(and before the claim is made that these people would not have a computer, I would hasten to point out that many libraries have internet access available for free to the public.)

edit:I'm concerned as it is nigh-impossible to vote in King County, WA on election day. It's almost exclusively mail-in or nothing. This change to voting practices bothered me greatly and I worry about people getting "ideas" that any system which seems like a good idea will become mandatory.

Yes, I am digging a very slippery slope to: Voter ID laws.

I like the idea of voter ID laws... applied consistently.We have to have identification to do nearly anything in this world.Proof of ID to vote just makes sense to prevent fraud.

Anything that further breaks down the barriers to voter registration is probably a good thing, I mean, addresses do change, Californians can be pretty mobile moving from city to city and county to county, some of our counties do encourage a fair number of permanent residents to become US citizens and a lot of people do move here from other States, so in the long run, this should save quite a bit of paperwork. I approve.

EDIT: Just used the online form to register to vote in the upcoming election. Relatively painless, a lot of the more annoying fields are completely optional (phone number, email address thankfully as I do not want government spam), and there’s a checkbox for people who don’t have a home address or SSN, not sure what happens if you use those though. The only thing this really does seem to require is a State-issued ID card or Driver’s License, your name, and your consent on a bunch of checkboxes to transfer records and to assure the State that you’re not a fraud, that you’re human (yeah there was a CAPTCHA), et cetera, but there are means to register in California without ID cards so it is not the giant cockblocker other States are trying to make ID cards into. All in all, took less than 5 minutes. Hope that answers some questions, and makes clear which ones I can’t answer personally.

This is awesome. I moved recently and just a few days ago I was thinking that it'd be really great to have an online registration instead of having to print the form and mail it in. Now I check back to the website and the online registration is there!

So someone enlighten me ... what's the big deal? Why is this necessary? For both states I've lived in, they give you the form along with everything else you have to fill out at the DMV to get the ID that is required for this. You don't have to mail it in, you just give it to them with the rest of the paperwork. You already have to be there in person to get the license, at least the first time, and you're already stuck there waiting in line, so it makes way more sense to just handle it then and there. I don't know why you would refuse to do so, unless you just don't want to vote.

Change of address within a state for voter registration is (or should be) handled automatically along with your DMV change of address (which I can do online). That's a lot better and more efficient than having an extra website specifically for voter registration.

The only thing I can think of is if this is to allow voters to change party affiliations. I doubt that's done often enough to justify the cost of building and maintaining a new website, nor does it really matter to the voter in the end, with the possible exception of the primaries (and even then, I think that allowing the voter the choice, on-the-spot, of which ballot they want to use is a better solution).

What happens when the same person registers to vote a 1000 times under different identities?

How long of a road between registring to vote online, and actual voting online? I'm guessing less than 10 years. This is a slippery slope we are on.

You can do that now, just fill out a registration card with bogus info and send it in. Registering to vote and actually voting are two different things. Also, filling out a false registration card might be a felony, so dont actually do this.

I'm not from USA, so could someone explain this "voter regisration" to me? In Finland the state automatically sends you notification about the upcoming elections. So when you are eligble to vote, they send you notification that you are eligble to vote + paperwork in case you want to vote in advance. And that's it. When you go to vote, you bring your ID, and they check it against their database of eligble voters. You don't have to separately register your desire to vote.

I have seen comments/tweets/etc. where people are being urged to register for the vote. Do you have to do this every time there is an election?

The best part about this and other threads that address voting? The same sorts of people who can't be bothered to read the article but post comments anyway will probably exhibit the exact same behavior at the voting booth.

Janne, there are a couple things at work here. yes, in the US, you must register to vote. Your registration is good for as long as you live in the same voting district, but if you move, you will have to change your registered address. A big difference between Americans and many (most? all?) other countries is that we have no national ID card, so there is no national standardized ID that one would expect every citizen to have. This blows people's minds sometimes, and i'm not really sure why we don't have one, except for the fact that the states existed as political entities before federalization and some people are afraid of...something? if there's a national ID. I don't get it, myself.

Janne, there are a couple things at work here. yes, in the US, you must register to vote. Your registration is good for as long as you live in the same voting district, but if you move, you will have to change your registered address. A big difference between Americans and many (most? all?) other countries is that we have no national ID card, so there is no national standardized ID that one would expect every citizen to have. This blows people's minds sometimes, and i'm not really sure why we don't have one, except for the fact that the states existed as political entities before federalization and some people are afraid of...something? if there's a national ID. I don't get it, myself.

I'm not from USA, so could someone explain this "voter regisration" to me? In Finland the state automatically sends you notification about the upcoming elections. So when you are eligble to vote, they send you notification that you are eligble to vote + paperwork in case you want to vote in advance. And that's it. When you go to vote, you bring your ID, and they check it against their database of eligble voters. You don't have to separately register your desire to vote.

I have seen comments/tweets/etc. where people are being urged to register for the vote. Do you have to do this every time there is an election?

Generally only every time you move to a new address.

I suppose the rationale is that the state is unable to verify your address, and voter roles are per state (not national) therefore they need to keep you from registering in multiple states at once. It's not a very good rationale though, at least in this day and age. It might have been necessary once.